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Thursday, July 23, 2009

Scientists believe they have found a "missing link" in the evolution of the virus that causes AIDS. It bridges the gap between the infection that does no harm to most monkeys and the one that kills millions of people.

That link is a virus that is killing chimpanzees in the wild at a disturbingly high rate, according to a study in Thursday's journal Nature. Chimpanzees are the first primate besides man shown to get sick in the wild in significant numbers from a virus related to HIV. Chimps are also man's closest relative among primates.

And chimps are already endangered.

But the discovery of the disease killing chimps may help doctors come up with better treatments or a workable vaccine for humans, experts said.

The monkey version of the virus that causes AIDS is called simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), but most apes and monkeys that have it show no symptoms or illness. So "if we could figure out why the monkeys don't get sick, perhaps we could apply that to people," said study lead author Beatrice Hahn, a professor of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

The nine-year study of chimps in their natural wild habitat at Gombe National Park in Tanzania found chimps infected with SIV had a death rate 10 to 16 times higher than uninfected chimps. And necropsies of dead infected chimps showed unusually low counts of T-cell white blood proteins that are just like the levels found in humans with AIDS, Hahn said in a phone interview.

And when scientists looked at the particular strain, they found that it was the closest relative possible to the virus that first infected humans.

"From an evolutionary and epidemiological point of view, these data can be regarded as a 'missing link' in the history of the HIV pandemic," AIDS researcher Dr. Daniel Douek of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases wrote in an email. Douek was not involved in the Nature study.

Monkeys and apes - except for chimps - seem to survive the virus because of some kind of evolutionary adaptation, probably on the cell receptors, Douek wrote. The infection of chimps is more recent so they haven't adapted, he wrote.

Hahn said chimps and people probably caught the virus the same way, by eating infected monkeys. And they both spread it the same way, through sexual activity.

Many factors are causing Africa's chimp population to dwindle, said study co-author Michael Wilson, a professor of anthropology at the University of Minnesota and former director of field research at the Jane Goodall Institute in Tanzania. Hunting, loss of habitat and disease are decreasing chimp numbers and it's hard to figure out how much of a factor SIV is, he said.

"It is a concern," Wilson said. "The last thing these chimps need is another source of mortality."

Wilson, who spent years observing chimps in Tanzania as part of the study, said that when researchers realized the virus was fatal and they knew which chimps were infected, it became hard to watch some of their activities in the wild.

He recalled wanting to warn one female chimp, "Don't mate with those guys." Wilson said. "But of course I can't do that."

Thoughts worth thinking about

"Our subconscious minds have no sense of humor, play no jokes and cannot tell the difference between reality and an imagined thought or image. What we continually think about eventually will manifest in our lives."-Sidney Madwed

Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every woman and man present their views without penalty, there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.- Albert Einstein Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. - Leo Buscaglia

A person's true wealth is the good he or she does in the world. - Mohammed

Our task must be to free ourselves... by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty. -Albert Einstein

The best way to find yourself, is to lose yourself in the service of others. - Ghandi

The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves. - Helen Keller

Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make yourself a happier and more productive person. - Dr. David M. Burns

Life is as dear to a mute creature as it is to man. Just as one wants happiness and fears pain, just as one wants to live and not die, so do other creatures. -His Holiness The Dalai Lama

Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it. -

Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them. That's the essence of inhumanity. -George Bernard Shaw

Ego's trick is to make us lose sight of our interdependence. That kind of ego-thought gives us a perfect justification to look out only for ourselves. But that is far from the truth. In reality we all depend on each other and we have to help each other. The husband has to help his wife, the wife has to help the husband, the mother has to help her children, and the children are supposed to help the parents too, whether they want to or not.-Gehlek Rinpoche Source: "The Best Buddhist Writing 2005 pg. 165

The hostile attitude of conquering nature ignores the basic interdependence of all things and events---that the world beyond the skin is actually an extension of our own bodies---and will end in destroying the very environment from which we emerge and upon which our whole life depends.

Alan Watts(1915 - 1973)

Source: The Book:On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (Vintage) Page: 9..10

One human being, one village, one city, or even one country can no longer live entirely on its own. Competitiveness - the desire to be the first, the best, the foremost, and only one - has simply become outdated as a "value." This desire may have been useful in the past. The concept of evolution describes a process from dependence toward independence, ultimately resulting in interdependence.

Frank Petter Source:The Spirit of Reiki (Shangri-La Series),Page 7

Consider the following. We humans are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others' actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others' activities. For this reason it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others. Nor is it so remarkable that our greatest joy should come when we are motivated by concern for others. But that is not all. We find that not only do altruistic actions bring about happiness but they also lessen our experience of suffering. Here I am not suggesting that the individual whose actions are motivated by the wish to bring others' happiness necessarily meets with less misfortune than the one who does not. Sickness, old age, mishaps of one sort or another are the same for us all. But the sufferings which undermine our internal peace -- anxiety, doubt, disappointment -- these things are definitely less. In our concern for others, we worry less about ourselves. When we worry less about ourselves an experience of our own suffering is less intense.What does this tell us? Firstly, because our every action has a universal dimension, a potential impact on others' happiness, ethics are necessary as a means to ensure that we do not harm others. Secondly, it tells us that genuine happiness consists in those spiritual qualities of love, compassion, patience, tolerance and forgiveness and so on. For it is these which provide both for our happiness and others' happiness. Dalai Lama.

Source: Ethics for the New Millennium:His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Page: 62

"We can judge the heart of a (hu)man by his or her treatment of animals."-Kant"I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights - that is the way of the whole human being!" (Abraham Lincoln "Complete Works")

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. We err in copying the lower animal world if we are superior to it."-Mahatma Gandhi

"It's not that humans and non-humans are identical... but the lack of understanding that led to the slave trade is the same lack of understanding many people have about animals today. When slaves were brought over from Africa, many people believed they were not humans, that they didn't have feelings. Many people believe that primates and other animals don't have feelings, too, but they do."- Jane Goodall

"Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."-

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Sadly, we Humans have not heeded these warnings! :

"If we go on the way we have, the fault is our greed and if we are not willing to change, we will disappear from the face of the globe, to be replaced by the insect." -Jacques Yves Cousteau
"The earth we abuse and the living things we kill will, in the end, take their revenge; for in exploiting their presence we are diminishing our future."-
Marya Mannes

Why we need sharks in the oceans and waterways of our World

"The Killing of Sharks is the biggest ecological time bomb we're going to face pretty soon.We have to understand that Sharks are the most abundant top predator on this planet over 100 pounds, so that tells you something.Nature created them for a reason.Now Human beings,they don't care if we kill 100 million, (If) we kill 200 million.so what? You know?That Sharks a nuisance,that shark is a good shark. let's kill them all.But if we kill them all,We destroy all food chains of an entire marine ecosystem and well, the majority of our oxygen comes from the Ocean,so we should be more careful."Dr. Erich Ritter shark biologist, quoted in the book, "Shark Water".